


i am not the only traveler who has not repaid his debt (the sky is falling while i hold you tight)

by alovelylilt



Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, song-fic kinda ish?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:07:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23818156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alovelylilt/pseuds/alovelylilt
Summary: At the end of the world, there's just her and him. It's not what they want, but it's enough.
Relationships: Ricky Bowen/Nini Salazar-Roberts
Comments: 6
Kudos: 59





	i am not the only traveler who has not repaid his debt (the sky is falling while i hold you tight)

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this in like 3 hours idk here it is
> 
> notes for the story:  
> -this whole apocalypse/post-apocalypse thing is not fleshed out at all narratively; i'm leaving it up to your imagination as to what happened. also, i am just lazy and not interested in this particular part of world-building for this story oops lol  
> -in retrospect i realize this sounds a little like it was inspired by coronavirus which i promise it was NOT i literally just got lazy about world-building and didn't specify what the catastrophe was. our world— the real world— is not ending!!! it will be okay eventually!!! it will be...... almost unimaginably different, but we'll still be here.  
> -i imagine nini and ricky to be like in their early twenties in this? college-aged, basically, but this is obviously not a college au lol  
> -"the Cape" refers to Cape Cod btw  
> -i have no recollection of where i first heard the story of the astronaut and the cryosleep thing but it's not my original idea so yeah! i also may have completely butchered the original story but o h well
> 
> hope you enjoy :))

The end of the world comes slowly, unhurriedly. The changes— when they start to happen— are slight, almost unnoticeable, ebbing and flowing until they’re huge and tidal.

In the course of a year (or maybe it’s been centuries, compressed by the weight of loss and a bone-deep sorrow) the streets are empty, the fields are barren, and the ocean is drying up. 

She meets him while she’s scavenging for food at a grocery store in a tiny town on the Cape. Her senses, trained by months of hard living on her own, instantly go on alert at the presence of another human being. She whips around the instant she feels someone at her back, thrusting outwards with a well-placed shove that sends him crashing into the shelf across from her. His back hits the shelf, and then he crumples into a heap on the ground. She aims her metal baseball bat at him, torn between knocking him out and continuing her scavenge for food and hoping that he’ll just leave her alone if she asks nicely. Throughout all this time, she hasn’t actually had to hurt anyone yet, and she doesn’t know if she can do it to someone who hasn’t even technically threatened her. 

“No, please, I’m not trying to hurt you or anything,” he splutters, holding his hands up before him in surrender. 

It’s the first time she’s seen another person in at least a month. Maybe she’s starved for contact, or maybe she just doesn’t care anymore, but she lowers the bat and crosses over to sit down beside him. He looks startled at the movement, but he just blinks at her and arranges himself to sit more comfortably. 

“The store’s mostly empty, by the way. Sorry to disappoint.” Nini’s voice is raspy from not speaking in so long, but the words come out easily enough. 

“Oh.” His voice is raspy, too.

She rummages in her bag for a protein bar and hands it to him. “You can have that, though.”

Their fingers brush when he takes it. Electricity shoots through both of them, quick and crackling.

“Sorry! Sorry, it’s my sweater; it’s wool,” Nini explains.

He smiles easily, and if she wasn't already sitting down, she would’ve been knocked off of her feet by the sight of that smile. He smiles like people used to before the end of the world started. “It’s okay, don’t worry,” he says, turning that smile away from her to munch on the protein bar. “Thank you for this, uh…?”

“Nini,” she supplies. “Nini Salazar-Roberts.”

“I’m Ricky Bowen. Nice to meet you, Nini.” He offers her a hand to shake, and she laughs at the meaningless formality of it all. Still, it feels good to laugh.

After Ricky finishes the protein bar, he stands up and brushes his clothes off of the grime of the grocery store floor. “Coming?” He offers his hand to her again, and she eyes him incredulously. 

“Are you serious? I just met you. And in case you haven’t noticed, we don’t have anywhere to go.”

He shrugs, extending his hand further out to her. “I found an empty house a couple streets down that’s pretty nice. Still has power and water and everything. Pantry is stocked, too. I just came here to see if I could get anything else. So… are you coming?”

Foolishness and loneliness drive her to slip her hand in his and allow him to pull her up. “I guess I am.”

It’s a two-story cottage with charming, baby blue shutters and lace curtains. Whoever used to live here has nice tableware: porcelain plates and long-stemmed wine glasses. Nini runs her fingers across the lid of the upright piano in the living room, stunned at the discovery of such a treasure. She hasn’t been able to play since everything ended a year ago. 

“Do you play?” Ricky’s voice is quiet as he stands in the doorway. It doesn't feel like he has to speak loudly to her, partly because there’s no one else around to hear and partly because he trusts her already. Maybe it’s stupid and maybe she’ll kill him in the middle of the night and leave, but it’s been so long since he’s heard someone laugh, and he’s hooked on the sound of her high, airy giggle.

She just nods and sits down, her hands trembling as she lifts the lid and spreads her fingers across the keys. “Before all this, I was a music student at Berklee. I was going to be a concert pianist, actually.”

“Well.” He clears his throat and slides onto the bench next to her. “I’m just an audience of one, but pretend we’re in a concert hall. Play me something.”

“The acoustics are better if you’re not sitting right next to me, you know. You can’t hear the full depth of all the notes from this close,” she points out, but she doesn’t move away from him. If anything, she relaxes into the warmth of his arm where it lines up with hers.

“I know. I was a physics major before all of this. I’ll go sit on the couch if you want, but if it’s okay with you, I’d like to feel the notes, not just hear them."

She nods in understanding. He’s just as touch-starved as she is, after all. So, she closes her eyes and begins playing. The notes are engraved into her mind; her hands work off of muscle memory and the unbridled joy of making music again. It’s a sad, lilting piece that stretches on for what feels like hours to Ricky. Time moves like honey as she plays— sweet and slow. He closes his eyes, too, lost in a trance of melody and melancholy.

When she lifts her hands from the keys at the end of the piece, he almost wants to cry. He hadn’t wanted it to come to an end, and he tells her as much. Her cheeks go pink at the compliment, even as she brusquely declares that it was a shitty performance. “Whatever talent I ever had has basically atrophied after all this time not playing,” she tells him. 

“Shut up,” he says quickly. He sounds like he’s out of breath when he asks, “What the hell was that? It was… gorgeous.”

She softens at the enchantment in his voice. “Erik Satie. Gymnopédie No. 1.”

“Play me another, please?”

“Okay.”

Music fills the room again, settling into their bones and dancing down their spines. For as long as the music continues on, they can pretend like the world outside has never fractured into incongruous pieces, like the sky hasn’t fallen down into the sea and swept away all semblance of safety. 

* * *

The days pass, just like they always did. Everything is different now, of course, but time marches on, relentless and merciless in its pursuit of each new day. 

A week into living in the cottage, they venture out and find a big warehouse with enough essential supplies to last them for months. It’s a huge victory, and they celebrate by making brownies. There are no eggs or butter, but Nini was a vegan before all of this, and she makes it work. 

Flour dots her cheeks and colors the ends of his curls by the time the brownies are in the oven, but they’re laughing too hard to notice. Exuberance floods the kitchen, which is probably what drives him to plant a kiss on the tip of her nose when she reaches across him to place the mixing bowl into the sink. She stills instantly, bringing a hand up to brush at her nose in a mixture of bemusement and heart-pounding anticipation.

He swallows hard at the way she looks right now, like she’s waiting to be kissed. He opens his mouth to ask, but she beats him to it.

“Can I kiss you?” She’s already leaning up on tiptoe, hovering so close and yet so far from his lips.

“Of _course_." When their lips meet, it feels like an earthquake and a skydive at the same time; he trembles all over and his stomach drops. Her fingers are achingly gentle in his hair, brushing flour out and tugging with desire in equal measure. There’s a frenzied symphony in the way their lips move together, insistent and desperate for something intangible.

“Ricky, _please_ ,” she whispers in between kisses. She has no idea what she’s pleading for, and neither does he, but he agrees, anyway.

“Whatever you want, Nini. Whatever you want.” He presses kisses on her chin, in the hollow of her throat, and behind her ear, wandering and exploring and mapping out the contours of her skin with his lips. 

The old-fashioned oven timer _dings_ just as he’s beginning to reach her jawline, and they break apart at the sound. She jumps into action, retrieving the pan of brownies and placing it on the counter, fanning uselessly at the tops of the brownies to cool them down. 

He moves to stand close again, hopelessly, magnetically drawn to her. He clears his throat and opens his mouth, ready to apologize or crack a joke or anything, really, just to get her to look at him again. Before he can say anything, Nini shoves a too-hot brownie into his mouth; he splutters and chokes on it, thumping at his chest as a piece of the brownie lodges itself in the wrong airway. 

“Oh god, I’m so sorry!” Nini hurries to get him a glass of water, practically forcing it down his throat, and now he’s choking on water _and_ brownies. “Sorry, sorry!”

“It’s fine, it’s fine!” He waves her off, still wheezing. When he finally catches his breath enough to speak properly, he finds his breath taken away again at the sight of her— lips swollen, hair in disarray from his wandering hands, and flour still dusted across her cheeks. Fondness fills him in overwhelming measure, and he can’t stop himself from reaching out to brush away the flour. 

“Sorry,” she repeats, shy and timid this time. 

“It’s fine,” he parrots back at her, suddenly feeling bashful as well.

“So… that just happened,” she says, trying to sound nonchalant but betrayed by the increasing pitch of her voice.

“Yeah…” He takes a deep breath. “Listen, it’s the end of the world and a beautiful girl just kissed me. If it’s okay with her, I’d like to keep kissing her, for as long as we have.”

“Well, seeing as you’re my only option, I guess I’d like that, too,” she mumbles. Her flippant words belie the pink in her cheeks and the cacophony of butterflies in her stomach. She feels so _alive_ it almost hurts. In that kitchen, surrounded by the smell of brownies and the glow of the setting sun filtered by the lace curtains, some part of her that had been unbound and aimless ever since this all began finally settles down. 

* * *

They trade personal histories, swapping anecdotes and traumas as the days go on. Discovering another person takes time, and time— like everything else— is in short supply, but it’s currency that they’re willing to give away to each other. 

She tells him about the scar she has on her chest from when she fell into a rosebush, and he tells her about the time he’d gotten punched in the face by an ex-boyfriend. His nose is still a little crooked from it.

She tells him about growing up in a conservative suburb of Utah with two moms, and the exhilarating freedom of Boston. He tells her about hiking in California, climbing as high as he could to get the best vantage point to see the stars. He was a physics major before all of this, he says, and more specifically, he was in astrophysics. 

“Science, huh?” she muses one night, staring up at the sky. He’d insisted on laying out underneath the stars tonight, because there’s supposed to be a meteor shower or something. “Did you guys see any of this coming?”

He shakes his head ruefully, messing up his hair against the blanket. “Not me, that’s for sure. I’m not _that_ smart, you know.”

“Still. Astrophysics!” She turns and props herself up on her elbow to look at him. “Like, you’re literally a rocket scientist!”

He rolls his eyes good-naturedly and mimics her position. “Nah, I was always more into the romanticism of space and the stars. It just worked out that I was really good at math and physics, too. These scientific principles… they’re supposed to order the world around us. But I always found the phenomena— those things that shock us and defy our laws— more interesting.”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “Jeez, you and I would have never gotten along if we’d met before.”

“Why’s that?”

“I like order. Neatness. Lines and boxes to check off.”

“Really? But music is so… creative.”

“Creativity can still have structure, Ricky.” Nini’s eyes twinkle in amusement. “Besides, there’s tons of order to music. Every note has its place in time and space and exists for a reason.”

He points a finger in her face. “That’s a very unromantic way of looking at music, Nini.” 

She swats him away. “Right, because you’re such an expert in romance.”

“I did say that I was always more interested in the romanticism of astrophysics, didn’t I?” At her doubtful look, his indignance multiplies. “I’m serious!”

“I believe you!”

“Liar.” He reaches out in what looks like a motion to shove at her shoulder playfully; instead, his hand curls around her shoulder to bring her closer to him. “Have you ever heard the story about the star-crossed astronauts?”

She shoots him a strange look. “Can’t say I have.”

“Well, it was really more like one astronaut and the love of his life. You see, this guy is an astronaut, and he’s the first person they’re sending out on this spaceship that can go faster than the speed of light. His journey is supposed to take 50 years in Earth time, but to him, it’ll only feel like five months. He hates to leave the love of his life behind and waste away those 50 years with them, but he has a plan: he’s going to put himself in a machine that lets him age at regular Earth time, so that when he gets back, he can spend his last few years at the same age as the love of his life and die peacefully with them. When he comes back, old and wrinkly, he finds out that the love of his life hasn’t aged a day, because they put themselves in cryosleep the second he left, in the hopes that they would stay the same age as the astronaut when he comes back.”

Nini frowns at him. “That’s a terribly sad story, Ricky.”

He taps her on the nose, smiling when she scrunches it in response. “Yeah, but isn’t it romantic to think that you could love someone enough to speed up your aging for them? Or to stop your aging and leave the rest of your life behind to go into cryosleep for them?”

“Maybe. But why didn’t they just talk about it before he left so they could make a plan _together_? And why couldn’t someone else go on the journey instead of that specific astronaut?”

“There’s also some physics that tells us that this whole aging-slower-at-the-speed-of-light thing isn’t actually true, if you really want to go full steam ahead and just ruin the romance of it all,” he grumbles. 

She smiles and places a warm hand on his chest, drawing him in close for a kiss. “There, there, Ricky. I’ll stop ruining your little fairytale.”

He bites her bottom lip in petty retaliation, but he soothes over the sting with his tongue, and she sighs into his mouth. She’s just started to push him back down onto the blanket when he remembers why they’re out here and pulls away.

Nini pouts at him. “Hey, why’d you stop? I was having fun kissing you.” 

“I promise you’ll have more fun watching this. Look up, Neens.” He points to the sky, where streams of light are streaking across the inky velvet of the night. 

Her mouth falls open in a silent gasp. “God, this is… captivating.”

“So are you,” he flirts shamelessly, but his eyes are still trained on the sky. After what feels like forever, the meteor shower ends, and he settles back down on the blanket, tugging Nini on top of him.

“Hey,” she murmurs. Her hair cascades down around them, tickling his face.

“Hi,” he returns, soft and warm. “So, I know we’re kinda doing this all in reverse, but I’d like for this to be our first date, if that’s okay with you.”

She blinks rapidly at him. It seems so absurd to be talking about dates in light of everything that’s happened in the past year, but some silly, tender part of her wants to hold tightly to this shred of normalcy for as long as she can. So, she agrees and leans down to kiss him once more. The bright light that explodes behind her eyelids might be the aftereffects of staring at the meteor shower, or it might just be the aftereffects of being held so firmly by Ricky; the distinction is negligible compared to the longing pull of his kisses.

* * *

One day, they get to the question of what they’re doing here in this tiny Cape town in the first place. 

He explains that his dad moved out here after the divorce. “I hadn’t spoken to him in so long, but just a couple months after this all started, he was the only person I had left in the world.” Ricky smiles sadly. “It took me a long time to get here from California, so I guess it shouldn’t have affected me so much when I got here and only found an empty house, but still. It hurt like hell.” Tears trickle down his cheeks; she wipes them away with nimble, adoring fingers. 

“An empty house isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Maybe he left earlier, to go looking for you,” Nini offers. It’s a hollow comfort and most likely untrue, but he loves that she offers it anyway. He loves _her_.

“What about you? How’d you end up here?” he asks.

She shrugs. “I lost everyone pretty quickly, too. After that, I just wanted to see the ocean one last time, so I came out here.”

“Yeah? Have you been yet? To the ocean, I mean.”

She shakes her head sheepishly. “Actually, no.”

“What? Are you kidding me? Let’s go now!” He leaps into action, immediately bustling around the cottage to find the picnic blanket they had spread out in the backyard to stargaze on, some sad snacks in the form of canned peas and stale crackers, and a backpack to stuff it all in. 

Falling in love with him was like a trainwreck; she couldn’t stop herself, even though she knew it could only end in agony. Still, watching him prepare an oceanside picnic all for her makes her heart stutter as if this really was a fairytale romance.

They find a nice, secluded spot on the beach (everywhere is secluded now) and spread themselves out there. The sky is overcast and the breeze is chilly; Nini can’t remember the last time the sun came out. Ricky draws her into his chest and she’s warm again, though, so she supposes the gloomy weather isn’t the end of the world. No, that would just be everything else. At that thought, frustration and anger flood through her.

“God, I hate this,” she whispers into his chest.

“Huh? We can leave if you want!” he exclaims, hurrying to soothe her.

She leans back to smack his chest lightly. “Shut up, I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about the world, and how it’s all gone to shit.” Angry tears slide down her cheeks. “You… you’re perfect. Everything about _this_ —” she gestures to the picnic and the ocean, “— is perfect, and I just hate it so much because I’m in love with you, I love you so much, and it doesn’t even _matter_! It doesn’t even matter, because the world is ending and no one else we love is alive to even see us be in love.”

“Oh, Nini.” His eyes are soft and forlorn.

“I’ll never get to graduate. You’ll never get to graduate. We’ll never get to go on a real date, or go to the movies, or get drunk and dance together at 3 in the morning, or move in together, or any of that. And I love you, I love you, I still love you so much.” She sobs into his embrace, finally letting out all the earth-shattering sadness that’s been building up in her for months and months and months.

“You know,” he begins, rubbing slow, soothing circles on her back, “I think I saw a bottle of shitty wine in the basement of the cottage. So we can still get drunk and dance together. I like our dates, even if they aren’t what we would normally do, and we can totally watch a movie later— I saw a DVD for Tangled in the living room. We’re technically living together already, and we can always put on our own graduation ceremony in the backyard. Oh, and I love you, too. Sometimes I think it’s the only thing I feel. And you know what? When the world ends, I just want to be holding you.”

* * *

They do all the things he said they would. They get drunk off of cheap wine and contort their limbs in increasingly silly dances at 3:07 in the morning; they watch Tangled so many times they can practically recite it (it’s the only DVD in the cottage); she plays a graduation march for him and hands him a fake diploma made out of construction paper, and later on he claps fervently when she gives her valedictorian speech to an audience of one. They love each other fiercely and fearlessly, as if the world isn’t ending.

Indeed, at the end of the world, the end of time, the end of everything— there’s just the two of them. It’s not what they want (they want their friends back, and their families, and their lives, and all the hopes and dreams and ambitions they once had for a seemingly boundless world). But it’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> anyways! as u can tell from the title, this was inspired by a combination of the song the night we met by lord huron and the song if the world was ending by julia michaels and jp saxe. idk the idea for a sort of melancholy, musing, apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic au came to me randomly when i was looking at the lyrics of if the world was ending, and then the mood of it hit me when i was listening to the night we met (i actually really like the version with phoebe bridgers in it, too). i was pretty hesitant about this initially because it's such a departure from what i usually write, but here are we anyway! i was actually working pretty consistently on another oneshot i'm writing, but this idea literally wouldn't leave my head so i just had to get it out. 
> 
> omg also yeah against my better judgement i got back on twitter so if u want to follow me there i'm @staccatohearts!
> 
> ((this was all very experimental and i know it veers into purple prose a lot but pls be nice!!))


End file.
